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Quin shook her head and laughed a little when Will tried to say that she had saved him, ”That was all you Will. That guy with the knives was coming right for me after I got clocked with that rock.” she paused a minute and tried to suppress another one of those slightly hysterical giggles that was trying to escape, ”At least if you can’t go back to working at the shop for a while you could probably sign on as new pitcher for the Yankees. As long as they let you throw coffee mugs.”

Was it appropriate to joke right now? In a church? When there was so much chaos outside? No, probably not, but what else were they going to do? Besides, Will could downplay his contributions all he wanted, but he was not going to outright fib about what he’d done.

The laughing hurt though and Quin reigned it in quickly as Will began to explain his other injuries after an initial shrug.

Had Will gotten hit in the head? Quin frowned as he commented that his head hurt, head injuries could be tricky. To be honest though, her head hurt too. Pretty much everything hurt, and as Will held up a piece of shrapnel that he’d pulled out of his arm, Quin winced as all the little places she’d been hit seemed to flare.

She’d been just about to ask about Will’s head more when he spoke and Quin’s eyes darted to his before looking down at his hand.

He could help? With his powers? Part of Quin wanted to immediately argue that she was fine, that she didn’t need to dull the pain…but, god she hurt. Maybe…maybe it would be nice for just a little bit.

”Okay.” she said softly, ”But what about you? Does it work on you too?” it didn’t seem right that Will would help her and get nothing out of it himself, ”It's not going to hurt you or anything right?”

She was in shock. They were in shock. Quin knew it, and while it probably wasn’t in the purely medical sense, it was the same eerie calm that made her want to laugh and cry and scream and sleep all at the same time.

That little sound that escaped Will made Quin realize that they were in the same boat and and as he apologized she shook her head, a few of the tears from before spilling over before she could do anything about them. Raising her free arm to wipe her face with a shaking hand, Quin took a deep breath that ended in a little hiss.

Yeah, something had definitely happened when that rock had hit her. Surely nothing was broken, people couldn’t run like they’d just run with broken ribs, but it still hurt. Quin didn’t want to know what it looked like.

Was she holding up?

Quin turned to look at Will for a moment then looked down at herself, at her filthy and torn clothes, the blood she could see streaking down her legs from where she’d been cut, the mess she knew her face and hair were.

And she just had to laugh. It wasn’t a loud laugh, but as she sat there, not sure what the hell had happened over the last…however long. Quin turned her wrist in Will’s grip and gave his hand a little squeeze before she let it go and reached up to try to fix her hair again.

”I’ve been better. I’ve been much worse. How about you?” she said.

She wasn’t going to make it. Quin’s legs were rubber and her side hurt so bad as she tried to make her way up the stairs. Will was there though and Quin didn’t know if he reached for her or if she reached for him, but suddenly they were making their way up the stairs together.

Quin couldn’t think about the chaos down the street, she couldn’t think about the fact that there could be more chaos inside, she was too exhausted, too hurt, too…done with today to focus on anything besides getting inside.

They made it to the top and Will didn’t even pause before he was throwing himself against the door. At first it didn’t budge and for the first time that day Quin could feel tears starting to well up in her eyes. If they couldn’t get inside here…where could they go?

Quin could feel her legs starting to shake. She was just going to sit down here, maybe if she could rest for just a little bit, she’d be able to think of somewhere else.

Just as she was about to drop to the ground, the door budged just enough that Will could slip inside, and Quin followed him.

The inside of the Cathedral was, in a word, overwhelming. Quin was still blinking away the tears, legs shaking uncontrollably, as they emerged into the huge, arched atrium that was inside the doors.

”Oh my god…” Quin breathed, slapping her hand over her mouth as soon as the words left it.

Still. The place was almost overwhelming. ”I really need to sit down…”

Well, they were two peas in a pod, weren’t they? Each trying to downplay their abilities and give away all of the accolades.

Will turned Quin’s own words around on her though and she had to acknowledge that having the powers that Will described was probably not as awesome as it sounded. Quin had been really lucky in that department. Other than getting a bit restless when she was surrounded by a lot of synthetics and could hear or feel them, her powers had never really caused her any problems.

”Guess you probably heard me apologize about the game wall…probably should have charged me the table fee in hindsight.”

Was it an inappropriate time to joke? Probably, but what else were they going to do?

Will handled Quin bandaging up that arm about as well as could have been expected but he still didn’t look the best by the time she had finished.

Will took a few moments then, thanking Quin as he rested against the statue and again she shook her head.

A short while later, Will was asking Quin if she knew of anywhere to go and the redhead shook her head. ”Everyone I know is 55th or lower. We can head that way if we want…maybe stick to the river as long as possible?” she said, eyes scanning the area around them until they fell on large spires in the distance.

Will was climbing to his feet and Quin followed, still staring in that direction, wrapping her arm around her middle at the twinge in her ribs, ”What about the cathedral?”

Quin frowned a bit as Will shifted to get the apron untied and over his head. If it hurt him that much to even use his arm they were definitely going to need to find some help. Taking the bundled up fabric carefully Quin draped it over her bent knees so it didn’t touch the ground and ripped a strip away from the bottom.

Will spoke and Quin had to smile just a little bit and shake her head at the way he tried to deflect her thanks. Sure he’d ran. There hadn’t been much else to do at that point, but before he’d ran he’d told the other people to get out of the shop and taken a knife to the arm for distracting the guy with knives who had been heading her way.

Had she taken out half of them?

Quin had to shake her head though, at the end there when the rock guy and summoned up those projectiles she hadn’t known what to do. She’d a been a sitting duck if Will hadn’t moved. ”I froze…I always freeze and it’s never quite enough.” Was that something innate about her? The inability to finish the fight so that nobody else got hurt. Something similar had happened the night with the clowns. Had it happened that other night too?

”Neat trick you’ve got.” Will said, and Quin looked at him a bit quizzically before realizing what he meant.

”Oh, my powers?” she said, then shrugged. ”They do tend to come in handy sometimes, but they’re not good for much.”


”What about you with the knife guy and knowing about the car?” Quin asked, readying the strip of cloth in he hands, ”This is going to hurt….”

Quin’s chest was absolutely on fire as leaned back against the wall, across from Will and tried to sort through exactly what had just happened.

She’d been studying. Things had been going well. So well. Quin figured she’d even made a friend. Why did things like this always seem to happen when everything was going well? Every time there was a turn for the better. Maybe she just wasn’t meant to ever find a place.

Shaking off the thoughts, Quin tried to take inventory of her injuries. Her ribs hurt beyond the burning of her lungs as she tried to catch her breath and she wondered if she’d bruised something when she’d taken that rock to the chest in the shop. It certainly would have explained why running had gotten so hard so quickly.

Here and there all up and down her left side there were stinging points of pain, and blood spotted and streaked her jeans, which were torn and slashed in several places. None of her joints hurt though, and it looked like the bleeding had stopped for the most part. Now that she had a chance to check she did have a fairly sizable scratch or gash along her cheek, it wasn’t still bleeding, so she could only hope it wasn’t bad.

Pulling her hair free of the dried blood, Quin swept it back into a low ponytail with the scrunchie she generally kept on her wrist. Than goodness she hadn’t lost it. Getting the hair out of her face helped somehow and Quin let her head fall back against the stone wall as she took a deep breath.

There it was, that unsettling calm that seemed to creep into her very being every time something like this happened. Now that the adrenaline had worn off and the initial panic was waning there was just…nothing.

Will looked quite a bit worse for wear and after she spoke, his head snapped over to her. He definitely was not feeling as calm as she was. Will spoke and Quin nodded slowly. It really was a lot.

”You’re bleeding…” she said, gesturing at his left arm where a fairly sizable wound peeked out from under the edge of his shirt sleeve. If she remembered right from all the chaos, the guy with the knives had gotten Will while they’d struggled.

Quin moved, stiffly and slowly to sit next to Will instead of across and reached out tentatively, ”Can I look?” Quin was no doctor, but she knew a bit of first aid from her trainings as a senatorial intern. It was wild that part of that training included how to stop bleeding from traumatic injuries, but that was a thought for another day. ”Your first time getting caught up in something like this?” she asked grimly as she waited for his response.